Couple sue Ohio county recorders over racial covenants in deeds

In the 1948 case of Shelley v. Kraemer, the U.S. Supreme Court held that racially restrictive real estate covenants, once a common practice, were not enforceable in court. Since then old covenants of that sort in title deeds have been a dead letter, but court clerks continue to copy them over as part of the historical transcription of title language that occurs in many real estate transactions. Now a couple described anonymously as John and Jane Doe, represented by attorney Zachary Gottesman of Cincinnati, have been suing county recorders around the state of Ohio asking for “an injunction requiring recorders to ‘sequester’ the offensive documents or, for those documents that have to be published, to redact the racially-offensive portions. They also ask for their attorney fees to be paid, punitive damages and any other relief the court deems just.” A lawyer representing the county clerks says they are legally obligated to copy, transcribe or otherwise make available the deeds as they find them, and that the anonymous filing of the lawsuit is improper. “Defendants,” argues the brief on their behalf, “cannot be held liable … in the same way a library or museum cannot be held liable for hate speech for maintaining a display of offensive historical documents,” he wrote. Please, don’t give the plaintiffs ideas for more suits. [Zanesville Times Recorder]

Maryland’s speech-chilling new “cyberbullying” law

I’ve got a short critique up now at Cato (earlier on the topic here). Proponents styled the enactment “Grace’s Law,” after a Howard County teenager who committed suicide; here’s Radley Balko on why “Laws named after crime victims and dead people are usually a bad idea.” While I believe the courts will eventually get around to striking it down, in the mean time the law will operate to chill some online speech.

P.S. Some recent thoughts from EFF’s Hanni Fakhoury on how laws can address the problem of harassment without being speech-unfriendly.

HUD vs. Westchester: what’s at stake

I’ve got a new piece at Reason on the long-running dispute between the federal Department of Housing and Urban Development and the government of Westchester County in suburban NYC. Claiming that Westchester has failed to follow through on promises of attracting more minority homeowners, HUD is suing the county and wielding funding cutoffs to get it to step up a large commitment to subsidized housing, override town zoning rules, and enact an ordinance forbidding private landlords from turning away Section 8 tenants. The WSJ editorialized yesterday on the subject. Further background: ironic that county is being penalized after seeking to cooperate [Gerald McKinstry, Newsday; Joanne Wallenstein, Scarsdale 10583]; former Democratic county legislator backs county executive Rob Astorino on so-called “source of income” legislation [Journal-News]; similar law already in effect in Washington, D.C. [Examiner]; earlier coverage here, here, etc., and my 2009 City Journal account.

P.S. Shortly after our piece, a Second Circuit panel ruled the county out of compliance. ProPublica, the foundation-supported reporting-and-opinion outfit, has been doing a series of reporting-and-opinion pieces taking the plaintiffs’ side, including this latest.

Labor and employment roundup

Query: what sites should I be linking more?

We don’t do many open threads here at Overlawyered, but here’s one with a specific focus: what sites should I be looking to more often for links?

Regular readers will notice that I frequently link to perhaps 40 or 50 blogs that I follow regularly, as well as to some news outlets with generous or no paywall policies (though the oft-linked Washington Post, e.g., will alas be ringing down the curtain soon on its no-paywall policy). I tend to avoid linking to strictly paywalled sites, even important ones like the WSJ, since I know most readers will not be able to follow the links.

I also link frequently to news sources from certain parts of the country from which friends and readers regularly send me clips, such as central Florida. Alert readers may possibly have deduced that there are some popular sites that I do *not* link to if I can possibly avoid it, even though readers often send me clips from those places. Often this is because those sites too often associate themselves with factually unreliable content. Meanwhile, I do sometimes link to some sites like the U.K. Daily Mail that predictably generate “how can you link to those awful people” comments, even when I am linking to an AP story or when the content of a piece can be fully confirmed elsewhere.

Your opinions?

A Letting Kids Walk Around Legal Defense Fund

Someone needs to organize one pronto, to judge by stories like this one from Ohio, where parents say they need pro bono help against a Child Protective Services attempt to seize custody of their six year old daughter for “neglect” that appears to include letting her walk around the neighborhood [Free-Range Kids, Shackford]

P.S.: Another story from Australia last year; and a happier one from Canada.

Intellectual property roundup

  • Sounds promising: “Peeved politicians want ‘loser pays’ rule for patent trolls” [Joe Mullin, Ars Technica] Defense of patent trolls in Wired mag [Michael Risch]
  • Scènes à Faire: the copyright exception for scenes that inevitably suggest themselves [Bruce Boyden, ConcurOp]
  • If the terms of service/purchase say you don’t have a right to resell the digitized book or song, maybe you don’t [The Digital Reader on court decision against ReDigi startup]
  • Pay to quote a single word from a newspaper? That’s what the popup at Canada’s National Post seems to suggest [Doctorow, BoingBoing]
  • Inside copyright enforcers’ “bait-car” operations [TechCrunch]
  • “Firm and two of its lawyers must pay $200K over frivolous patent case” [Sheri Qualters, National Law Journal]
  • “Crazy copyright bot (now suspended by Twitter) threatens those who tweet tiny poem” [Rob Beschizza via @ChrisBellNZ]

“Dihydrogen monoxide is coming out of your tap!”

A county official in Florida says two now-suspended radio DJs, Val St. John and Scott Fish, could face felony charges over an April Fool’s running gag in which they warned listeners that local tap water contained “dihydrogen monoxide,” another way of describing water. “My understanding is it is a felony to call in a false water quality issue,” said Lee County public information officer Diane Holm: “They will have to deal with the circumstances.” As for the suspension itself, “We take our FCC license very seriously,” said a VP of the broadcasting company. [WTSP] (& Patterico)